Zubin Mehta in Belgrade: Dvorak Rehearsal, Gala Friday
On Monday the maestro held his first rehearsal with the orchestra that gave him his first professional chance in 1958. The concert for his 90th birthday is Friday at Kolarac.
The first words Zubin Mehta spoke to the Belgrade Philharmonic on Monday were ordinary ones, the kind heard in any office, with no ceremony at all. According to the Philharmonic’s statement, the orchestra greeted him with an ovation at the start of the first rehearsal, and only then did the work begin that brought one of the world’s best-known conductors to Belgrade.
The gala concert takes place on Friday, October 23, 2026, at 8 p.m. at the Kolarac Foundation. According to N1, tickets are largely sold out, and sales went through the website efinity.rs.
What is on the program at Kolarac?
The program has three works:
- Richard Wagner, overture to “Rienzi”
- Franz Schubert, Symphony No. 3
- Antonin Dvorak, Symphony No. 7
The first piece Mehta rehearsed was Dvorak’s Seventh. As the Philharmonic relays, he said the program is demanding, and he addressed the musicians with these words:
“Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I am very happy to be with you again. As always, it gives me great joy.”
The Philharmonic has not released further details about the rehearsal, so this is all that is known: it began with Dvorak, and Wagner and Schubert follow before Friday.
Why is Belgrade on the list of anniversary cities?
The concert is part of a worldwide celebration of Mehta’s 90th birthday. It began in January in Mumbai, his birthplace, and with the Belgrade Philharmonic at that. Concerts followed with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino orchestra from Florence, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Berlin and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Barcelona.
The orchestra that first gave Mehta a professional opportunity thus opened his anniversary year, and on Friday it hosts him in Belgrade. How the Philharmonic itself sees that relationship is laid out in its statement:
“Every visit by maestro Zubin Mehta is a great privilege and a joyful event, not only for the musicians of the Belgrade Philharmonic but for the entire Serbian public. The concert marking the maestro’s jubilee will be his 19th appearance with the Belgrade Philharmonic, as part of a musical friendship that has lasted almost seven decades. Back in 1958, the Belgrade Philharmonic was the first orchestra to give the young Mehta a professional opportunity, which the maestro always recalls fondly.”
The same statement says Mehta did Belgrade a great honor by including it among the world centers marking 90 years of his life and one of the greatest conducting careers. The concert page on the Philharmonic’s website does not list ticket prices, and the information about the sellout comes from N1.
